Part 5 of 5 in A Love Letter to Fairmount

I run the Schuylkill Banks trail at 6:30 most mornings. It's fifteen minutes from my front door with my son in the stroller. The trail is wide and paved and flat.

I usually run north, towards Girard Street Bridge. That direction is all joggers and bikers and walkers, and the people driving the pedal cars you can rent at Lloyd Hall. There's room for everyone to pass each other without slowing down. I run it in the rain, in the snow, and in summer heat.

Sometimes, maybe five percent of the time, I go south, towards Center City. That direction has street vendors, a kayak rental place, and some kind of community center that leaves bowls of water out for dogs. The skyscrapers from Center City and West Philly frame both sides of the river. It's more urban than the north run. The north is greener.

Boathouse Row is on the river. The boathouses are fancy — colleges and prep schools mostly. I rowed crew for a while in college. It was a fun sport, but expensive, and it took a lot of dedication. The rowers are out by 5:30 most mornings. Their oars come down in rhythm. The bridges cross above the boathouses. Each bridge is a different mix of brown and grey stones, I guess dependent on which era it was built in.

I started running with my son once his neck was strong enough to handle the bumps that occur while running in an upright seated running stroller like the Bob we use. He doesn't say "Bo" at every boat, just some. But he does say "Do" at every dog he sees, since that was arguably his first word that he mastered.

At various points along the trail, at least on the east side, you see families of geese. And if you step a little bit off the trail, you can step on green gross goose poop. I’ve heard male geese are territorial, but I’ve never had a problem and my kid has never run towards them.

The running paths and trail along the river are one of the things I love most about Fairmount. I used to run south along this same trail when I lived in Strawberry Mansion, but now I jog North from Fairmount. Either way, its fun, gives me something to do, and keeps me somewhat in shape. #DadBod